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2 thoughts on “School days, school days, dear old Golden Rule days…”

“Going back to school is extremely tough for a lot of Japanese students, and this can be clearly seen in the country’s suicide statistics.
In Japan, more people under the age of 18 commit suicide on Sept. 1 than any other date, according to a 2015 government white paper (link in Japanese, pdf) examining 40 years of data. The government attributed the reason to the mental pressures that students face adjusting to school life after a particularly long break. The anxiety of teens going back to school is so pervasive that there’s a Japanese term (pdf) to describe them: futoko, or “people who don’t go to school.” https://qz.com/1067558/in-japan-more-teenagers-commit-suicide-on-sept-1-than-any-other-day-of-the-year-because-of-anxiety-of-going-back-to-school/ “The overall number of suicides has been steadily falling in Japan since 2003, but the number of youth suicides has stayed relatively stable, in part, some say, because of a widespread culture of bullying in Japanese schools. The collective of Japanese classrooms, and society at large, means that bullying in schools often takes the form of a large group ganging up on someone, rather than just a few individuals, according to the Economist”.

“Back-to-School Supplies Cost as Much as Average Mortgage” https://www.nbcnews.com/business/consumer/back-school-supplies-cost-much-average-mortgage-n797191
“This year the supply list for an elementary school student costs about $650, up from an inflation-adjusted $375 in 2006, according to the annual Huntington Bank’s Backpack Index, which tracks the change in a representative basket of goods over time.
A middle-school student might run $1,000; up from $525. And sending a fully equipped high-schooler off to class can cost nearly $1,500 — compared to $800 just 10 years ago.
All together that’s an average of about $1,000 — nearly the same as the average U.S. monthly mortgage payment.”